Simon is a lonely and disturbed individual, a bright student who is adrift after graduation and unsettled by the break-up of a long term relationship. He desperately needs to reconnect with society, to feel some human warmth. So, perhaps a trip to Paris wasn’t the best idea.

The title, or at least that surname, hangs over the film and your reactions to it. In an early scene Simon explains about the breakup which was prompted by her infidelity and admits he might have overreacted to it and I imagine everyone in the audience goes “A-ha,” when they hear this. But this isn’t the direction the film is taking us. There is a tension between the expectations the title suggests and what the film delivers which doesn’t necessarily work in its favour.

In reality he’s more Simon Scrounger and eventually he wheedles his way into the life of a prostitute (Diop) who he then involves in some criminal endeavour. Corbett is a veteran of earnest, indie cinema (Mysterious Skin, Funny Games U.S.) and he gives Simon that trademark mooching American indie integrity, sniffing around the Parisian winter like a scuzzball equivalent of Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise/ Sunset.

The film resembles its protagonist - overly introspective, dour and too pleased with its own seriousness. It has a certain intrigue but is a disappointment compared to Campos’ debut Afterschool and Martha Macey May Marlene that he produced for Sean Durkin through their company Borderline Films. It has some of the oblique shots and distancing narrative tricks angles of his former works but it not as challenging or daring and much less rewarding.

A clever dissociating device in Simon Killer was to have no subtitles for the French dialogue. I was impressed by how effectively the film communicated emotion when less than half dialogue was comprehensible. It was therefore a big disappointment to receive a mail the next day from the distributors apologising for the technical glitch that meant there were no subtitles. I think they should stick with the version we saw.